Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The Rio Grande Valley Zeitgeist Movement will hold its seventh general meeting on Wednesday December 1st, from 6-8pm in Room J 1.208 at the South Texas College Pecan campus. We will be hosted by the Zeitgeist Movement student organization at STC.

This will be one of our most significant meetings we have held, as we will be discussing planning and logistics of the upcoming McAllen Artwalk promotions we will be doing this Friday. Please bring examples of the flyers, artwork, tshirt designs, banners and other items that you plan to bring so that we can help plan and organize our resources. This will be our first major outreach event as an organization, and I believe we will be very successful at reaching others with our message and ideas about a resource based economy.

We will also be discussing progress regarding venues for the screening of the upcoming Zeitgeist Moving Forward film. In addition, we will start organizing a promotional campaign for the film, both individually and as coordinated group efforts. This upcoming Artwalk activity will help define how receptive the area is and be instructive in how to reach the people in our community.

In addition, we will continue to discuss ways in which we should articulate responses to questions and criticisms of our movement and goals. There are many people who do not understand what we want to accomplish, and some who are even confused about or afraid of what we stand for. We will be looking at some of the available material online that helps us answer these concerns.

All are welcome to join us, and I hope you bring your family and friends so that they can discover what we are about and how we hope to help make our society and our world a better place for all people. Thank you for your time and attention.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Rio Grande Valley Zeitgeist Movement held its sixth general meeting on Saturday, which was primarily focused on our first major project and other activism events. We began by screening the trailer for the upcoming Zeitgeist Moving Forward film. We decided as a group that securing at least one venue and screening this film during the exclusivity period will be our first major goal. We also had preliminary discussions for the upcoming Z-Day event in March, and decided to make more immediate plans for the upcoming McAllen Art Walk event on December 3rd. In addition, we had a discussion dealing with criticisms of the movement and how to argue and discuss common concerns we might come across while interacting with the public. Finally, we decided that due to the popular holiday weekend which our next meeting is scheduled for, we will not hold an official meeting, but will possibly hold an informal gathering sometime between now and December 1st.

As I mentioned, the first major discussion was regarding our decision to hold a screening of the next film. The first order of business, as I understand it, is for our group to become an official chapter of the movement. It is generally unclear as to what we must do in order to meet this level, and the lack of a Texas state coordinator means that I have asked Jen Wild, United States coordinator, directly what we must do. Beyond that, we must secure a venue for screening the film and sign a contract with Peter Joseph in order to secure a copy of the film. The distribution and screening process of this film is radically different from other mainstream films, in that individual chapter coordinators are going to be responsible for a large part of it and not a major distributor or theater chain. We discussed a variety of venues, most significantly the available screens at South Texas College and UTPA, as well as Cine El Rey. Both Armando Lopez and myself will make efforts to learn more about and attempt to secure these venues, and we ask that anyone with the ability or experience of securing these venues to come forward and assist us in these efforts. The general idea of the exclusivity period is that chapters would be able to generate revenue to help cover expenses of activism and the upcoming Z-Day events.

We had preliminary discussions regarding the upcoming Z-Day events which will most likely be in March. It will likely be an all day event that will involve screening of the various movement films, lectures and associated media. In addition, we could have other presentations and lectures that are given by ourselves and that can relate directly with issues we face in our local community. We discussed some possible venues and ideas for that event, and we will be discussing them in greater detail as we go forward.

Our most important discussion was regarding the upcoming Art Walk festival which is held on the first Friday of the month in McAllen. Several members indicated that they had great success previously in distributing flyers and noting that a great deal of those they talked to had already heard of the movement and were surprised and interested by the existence of a local chapter. We encourage all members who are able, to design and print flyers, informational pamphlets and banners so that we can have a presence at this event and inform and reach even more people. In addition, if you have the ability to design or decorate your clothing to promote the movement and our website, this is also encouraged. We will have more details posted in this space and in our new groups platform as we near the date. We will also discuss this during the next official meeting.

We concluded the meeting with a bit of mock argument and criticism discussion. We covered some of the major issues that people bring up and accuse the movement of when we attempt to share our goals and ideas. We covered the issue of a lack of monetary system, and discussed that we need to bring up the current problems that the monetary system possesses. We also discussed the accusation of our movement advocating communism, which we concluded were projections of old fears into a system that is completely different. We need to encourage people to be more specific in their terms, as the idea of communism is usually brought up as a vague and ill defined idea. We closed with a discussion on the decision making process, the idea of dissent within a resource based economy and personal responsibility. We ended with our customary group photo which will appear in this space as soon as it is now available!

We are fortunate enough to have a recording of this meeting which is being hosted by our friends at RGVNostate. I hope that it is a valuable resource to those who are unable to attend our meetings and would like to keep up to date and learn more about how we operate. Thank you for your time and attention.

Monday, November 8, 2010

The Rio Grande Valley Zeitgeist Movement will be holding its sixth general meeting on Saturday November 13, from 1pm to 3pm in Building J, room 1-208 of the South Texas College Pecan campus. We will be hosted by the South Texas College chapter of the Zeitgeist Movement.

Our general agenda will be to discuss upcoming major projects for our chapter, including the upcoming release of Zeitgeist: Moving Forward in January, and the 3rd annual Zeitgeist Day to be held in March. We will also talk about global movement structure, the new Google Groups communication platform and global movement news.

If you have any questions or concerns about this meeting, or the Zeitgeist Movement in general, please contact me or Armando Lopez and we will attempt to address your concerns to the best of our ability. All are welcome to participate in our meetings and we hope that you join us to help make the world a better place for all people. Thank you for your time and attention.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Rio Grande Valley Zeitgeist Movement now has an official Google group in order to better facilitate communication within the group and to better coordinate future event planning and information distribution. As you can see on the current homepage, there is a noticeable white box which links to our Google group site, which is http://groups.google.com/group/rgvzgm. I encourage all current and future members to join this group and edit their email settings so that they receive no more email than they are comfortable with. If you have any questions or concerns with this new system, please let me know and I will address your concerns as soon as possible.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Rio Grande Valley Zeitgeist Movement held its fifth general meeting tonight in McAllen, TX, and it was our most engaging and well attended meeting we've ever had. We saw a number of new faces during our meeting and greeting, and we were very pleased to receive such a diverse, opinionated and passionate group into our burgeoning organization. From a young family with their child to a student of chemistry to individuals who are interested in learning more about the movement and the scientific principles we seek to promote, it was a very positive experience to have new minds and new ideas to engage with. As was mentioned from the last meeting, growing and attracting new people is one of our goals, and I am so pleased that it is happening organically and gradually even during this short period of time.

Our stated agenda was to discuss the political elections, the failures of our current system and the decision making process in a Resource Based Economy. The discussion we wound up having was completely different and highly engaging. We discussed a wide array of topics, including the emergent nature of the universe, the application of the bell curve to human potential, the intriguing duality of sub atomic particles, the need to have an ontological and epistemological basis on which to found our ideas about society and the evolution of religion, tribalism and the human psyche. Many attendees engaged in passionate discussion that might have even challenged and even changed the ideas and beliefs held by others. In a surprising bit of synchronicity, one member recited a poem he composed earlier that was relevant to the discussion on particle physics. It was a great time and eye opening experience that I hope to have again in the future.

Towards the end, we started to discuss practical ways in which we can start to affect society now. We realized that we cannot, practically, have an overnight "success" in terms of an immediate implementation of an RBE. We determined that the most practical and personal action to take was to start altering one's own mind and value set to align with what is relevant and true. If we start to allow our value set to inform our actions in a more positive manner, then we can influence the ones around us and society on a small, but aggregately large, degree. We also discussed the next planned meeting for Saturday, November 13th, which will be announced when details are firm. We ended with our customary photo presented below, and some after meeting discussions which were met with equal passion, if not more so. Thank you again to all who participated and I ask everyone who wishes and is able, to join us in our effort to promote a better life for all people.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

The Rio Grande Valley Zeitgeist Movement will hold it's fifth general meeting on Wednesday, November 3rd from 6-8pm in Building H, room 231 of the Pecan campus of South Texas College. We will be hosted by the Zeitgeist Movement student organization.

Our general agenda will be to discuss the recent election, breakdown and understand the current failings of our political system, how rational and relevant decisions would be arrived at in a Resource Based Economy and open the floor to any other topics that come up.

If you have any comments or questions about this meeting or the Zeitgeist Movement in general, please contact me or Armando Lopez and we will attempt to address your concerns to the best of our ability. Thank you for your time and attention.